DCF Pledges Increased Oversight To Reduce Infant Deaths

Stepping up prevention in families where the risk for infant death is high

HARTFORD — Unsafe sleep was a factor in more than a third of 124 infant deaths since 2005, and the state's child-protection agency has engaged a national foundation to help prevent these deaths by better predicting a family's level of risk.

Joette Katz, commissioner of the Department of Children and Families, said the agency's work with the Eckerd foundation will include increased oversight of families with infants that have open cases with DCF – even if the infant has not been subject to abuse or neglect.

DCF studied the deaths of 124 infants between Jan. 1, 2005, and May 31, 2014. All were from families with open or previous DCF cases.

Sudden infant death syndrome accounted for 28.2 percent of the deaths; medical complications caused 12.1 percent of the fatalities; documented unsafe sleep practices were identified in 11.2 percent of the cases; and physical injury was the cause in 8.1 percent of the deaths.

But when the SIDS cases and the obvious sleep deaths were combined, the specter of dangerous sleeping conditions – adults rolling over on babies, infants suffocating in car seats, children put to bed in cribs with too much clothing, blankets, toys or other items – was present in one form or another in just under 34 percent of the deaths.

After public-health alerts by Child Advocate Sarah Eagan, and a renewed focus nationally on unsafe sleep, DCF last year began to distribute "pack n' pay" cribs to households that lacked adequate sleeping arrangements for infants, and DCF social workers were instructed to interview parents about their infants' sleeping environment.

But Katz said the partnership with Eckerd represents a ratcheting up of DCF's efforts to intervene in what advocates say are readily preventable deaths. Eckerd has developed a prevention tactic called "rapid safety feedback" – an analysis of risk factors in a home that helps social workers predict and react to dangerous habits.

DCF said in a statement Monday that Eckerd will donate its services for one year, and that Casey Family Programs will pay for a second year. The value of Eckerd's services for two years is $226,000, according to DCF spokesman Gary Kleeblatt.

In addition to these predictive tools, DCF has arranged for doctors from Connecticut Children's Medical Center in Hartford and Yale-New Haven Hospital to be on call nights and weekends to help smaller hospitals, clinics and other health providers to better recognize and document signs of abuse in children they are treating for injuries

The Courant reported in February 2014 that infants' dying in unsafe sleeping conditions was the leading cause of death of children in DCF-involved families over the previous three years. Katz at the time said DCF social workers were making safe sleep a top priority in home visits and giving cribs to families that needed them. Eagan's office and DCF also issued public information bulletins promoting safe sleep.

A review of abuse and unsafe-sleep deaths by Eagan's office showed inconsistencies on the part of DCF caseworkers.